I bring bad luck to my husband, you bring bad luck to your wife.

Yang Tongchuan didn't have to wait long before the constables, coroners, and corpse retrieval team arrived.

Yang Tongchuan made arrangements: one group went to disperse the crowd and maintain order, another group went to clear the open space and set up tents to prepare for the autopsy, and another group went to assist the body retrieval team and make records.

After arranging the work, I finally had some free time to return to Xiangxi's side.

"I'll take you back first." It's too chaotic here; Yang Tongchuan needs to get Xiangxi and the child out as soon as possible.

"Is it really a dead person?" Xiangxi's expression wasn't as grim as before.

"Don't ask anymore, let's go home first." With so many people around, Yang Tongchuan couldn't say anything more.

The horses were going much faster on the way back. Xuebao was tired from playing and had already fallen asleep in Xiangxi's arms.

Xiangxi, on the other hand, looked worried.

"Don't be afraid, the sky won't fall down." Yang Tongchuan's warm embrace and firm tone dispelled some of Xiangxi's gloom.

After dropping Xiangxi and the child off at the door, Yang Tongchuan didn't have time to say anything more before turning his horse around and galloping back to Lotus Pond.

It moved so fast that it created a cloud of smoke.

After learning what had happened to the couple and their child at the Lotus Pond, Yang's mother hurriedly found some mugwort to boil in water so that Xiangxi and the child could take a bath.

"I've put the remaining mugwort water in a bucket. I'll let my second son take a bath before he comes into the house tonight. The child's eyes are clean, so I don't want to scare him." Yang's mother was heartbroken.

I finally managed to get some fresh air, how could I run into such bad luck?

Xiangxi is still scared when she thinks about it now. She didn't eat dinner, just drank a couple of mouthfuls of porridge, and then took the child back to the house.

Mingle was worried that he would get hungry in the middle of the night, so she went to the street and bought some rice cakes to bring to his house.

Yang Tongchuan rushed back to Lotus Pond, where the murder was discovered. The body retrieval team had already retrieved the body, and the coroner was examining it.

"Thank you all for your hard work. This is the government's payment, and this is a small token of my appreciation. Please have some drinks and tea with the brothers." Yang Tongchuan was very respectful to the men in the corpse retrieval team.

So in addition to the wages that the government usually paid, he also prepared a small token of his appreciation.

"Officer Yang, you're too kind. The temple keeper told us when we arrived that Officer Yang's business is the business of the River God Temple. If we take your money for drinks, the temple keeper will complain when we get back." The leader didn't mince words.

Before setting off, the temple keeper had told him: "Captain Yang is a kind-hearted person. Let's help him if we can."

"Then I'll trouble you, brother, to donate this small token of my appreciation to the donation box at the River God Temple as incense money." Yang Tongchuan shoved the two money bags into the leader's hands.

"This..." Aren't these the same thing?

"This is for incense offerings, not for drinks, so the temple keeper won't complain."

Yang Tongchuan remembered. It must be about the unidentified female corpse from last time. He had given the temple keeper a total of twenty taels of silver, and the temple keeper had kept it in mind.

"Alright, thank you in advance, Officer Yang."

After the leader put away the two money bags, he respectfully bowed to Yang Tongchuan in gratitude and then left with his team.

"Officer Yang, we've found something!" The constable in charge of taking notes with the coroner ran over to call Yang Tongchuan.

Yang Tongchuan followed him to the makeshift tent for the autopsy.

As soon as the curtain was lifted, a strong smell of blood, mixed with the putrid stench of silt from the bottom of the pond and the stench of decaying corpses, hit me.

It was as if someone had punched Yang Tongchuan squarely in the face.

The stench made Yang Tongchuan gag.

Just as he was about to ask the constable beside him to get him a glass of water to rinse his mouth, he realized that there was only an old coroner and the female corpse in the tent; the constables who were supposed to be with him were nowhere to be seen.

These people are slacking off again.

"Officer Yang still needs more practice." The old coroner was a veteran of many battles and could remain calm in such a situation.

"Stop joking around, just tell me what the test results are." Yang Tongchuan suppressed his discomfort, found a handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose, and leaned forward.

"This is the body of an elderly woman, nearly sixty years old. Her clothes are intact, and there are no signs of sexual assault on her genitals. The time of death is estimated to be yesterday, but I can't say for sure what time. I'll need to examine her more closely when I get back. Her chest, abdomen, and limbs are covered with dozens of stab wounds of varying depths and gruesome edges. I can't yet determine what kind of weapon caused these wounds." The coroner pointed out each of the wounds to Yang Tongchuan.

"But one thing I'm certain of is that these injuries on the body were inflicted before the victim died, and the real fatal wound is here." Old Wu lifted the white cloth covering the woman's face.

It was a face that had been deliberately ruined.

His eye sockets were pierced and mangled; his eyeballs were missing, leaving only two bloody holes stained with mud.

The bridge of the nose is sunken, and there are traces of thick thread sewing on the lips.

To facilitate the autopsy, the coroner had removed the thick thread.

The teeth in the mouth were all smashed, and the tongue was nowhere to be found.

Black, foul-smelling blood even flowed from his ears.

This is torture!

Was this cruel method a way for the killer to vent his anger, or was it to prevent us from finding out the victim's identity?

Yang Tongchuan was also completely puzzled.

The woman's clothing was decent, but no accessories were found that could identify her.

The main problem is that all the valuables are gone. If it was robbery, why would they take people's lives like this?

"Any other discoveries?" Yang Tongchuan felt that this case was full of strangeness.

The coroner was already packing up.

"There's one more place, but that's just my guess." The old coroner paused his work.

"Please feel free to speak."

"There was a palm-sized burn on the inside of the right thigh of the female corpse, which was an old wound. Although the body was somewhat bloated, it was still barely recognizable."

"How did you get injured there? Were you abused?"

"Officer Yang doesn't like to go out and have fun, so naturally he wouldn't know these things. Some prostitutes who aren't doing well, or who are old and faded, will deliberately get fancy tattoos on their private parts to attract more customers. When they leave the profession, they'll use a branding iron to burn these things off, symbolizing escaping from their misery and starting anew."

"The coroner is truly knowledgeable."

You old bachelor, you probably spend all your monthly money on this, don't you?

"I'm flattered. The conditions here are limited, and this is all we can find for now. The rest will have to be examined more carefully after the body is transported back to the morgue."

Stepping out of the tent, several constables stood awkwardly outside, all of them having been driven out by the unpleasant smell.

Yang Tongchuan didn't criticize them too much. He just picked a few of the girls who usually frequented brothels and asked them to go to the places they were familiar with and ask the madams if there were any missing 60-year-old women.

He then led his men to turn the lotus pond upside down, but unfortunately they still found nothing.

Yang Tongchuan had no choice but to take the body and the others back to the yamen.

Only then did he remember that there was a young man picking lotus flowers who had been holding onto the bag.

"Take him back with us and have an experienced interrogator interrogate him thoroughly to see if there's anything else he's hiding."

Back at the yamen, Yang Tongchuan instructed the kitchen to boil more water, as he and his men needed to wash off the stench of the corpses.

News soon came from the dungeon.

"Officer Yang, that kid was indeed hiding something. He threw the murder weapon into the pond."

So fast?